Minor White

Minor White - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Minor White

Minor Martin White (July 9, 1908 – June 24, 1976) was an American photographer, theoretician, critic, and educator.

This profile of Minor White covers Early Life and Family Background, Career and Rise to Fame and Retrospective.

White made photographs of landscapes, people, and abstract subject matter. They showed technical mastery and a strong sense of light and shadow. He taught at the California School of Fine Arts, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in his home. Some of his most compelling images are figure studies of men he taught or with whom he had relationships. He helped start the photography magazine Aperture, considered the only periodical produced for, and by, photographers practicing the medium as a fine art. He served as its editor for many years. White was hailed as one of America's greatest photographers.

Early Life and Family Background of Minor White

White was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was the only child of Charles Henry White, a bookkeeper, and Florence May Martin White, a dressmaker. His first name was the same as his paternal great, great-grandfather. His middle name was his mother's maiden name.

During his early years, he spent a great deal of his time with his maternal grandparents and enjoyed playing in their large garden, later influencing his decision to study botany in college. His grandfather, George Martin, an amateur photographer, gave White his first camera in 1915. From 1916 to 1922, White's parents went through a series of separations. During those periods, White and his mother lived with her parents. His parents reconciled in 1922, remaining together until they finally divorced in 1929.

When White graduated from high school, he was aware of his latent homosexuality. In 1927, he wrote about his feelings for men in his diary, which his parents read without his permission. After this, he left home for the summer in what he called a brief crisis period. In the fall, he returned home and entered the University of Minnesota, majoring in botany. His parents never spoke of his homosexuality again.

By 1931, when he should have graduated, he did not meet the requirements for a science degree and left school for a year. During this time, he became interested in writing and started a life-long personal journal he called "Memorable Fancies." He journaled poems, intimate thoughts about his life and sexuality struggles, excerpts from letters he wrote others, occasional diary-like entries about daily life, and later, extensive notes about his photography. He continued with the journal until 1970, when most of his energy was directed to teaching.

In 1932, White re-entered the university, studied botany and writing, and graduated in 1934. The next semester, he took some graduate botany classes. After six months, he decided he lacked the interest to become botanist. He spent the next two years doing odd jobs and exploring his writing skills. During this time, he created a set of 100 sonnets on the theme of sexual love, his first attempt at grouping his creative output.

Career and Rise to Fame of Minor White

In late 1937, White decided to move to Seattle. He purchased a 35mm Argus camera and hopped a bus to his intended destination. After stopping in Portland, Oregon, he decided to stay there. For the next two and a half years, he lived at the Portland YMCA and explored photography in depth. He taught his first photography class at the YMCA to a small group of young adults. He also joined the Oregon Camera Club and learned how photographers discuss their craft and work.

In 1938, White was offered a job as photographer for the Oregon Art Project, funded by the Works Progress Administration. One assignment was to photograph historic buildings in downtown Portland before they were demolished for a new riverfront development. These included Arches of the Dodd Building, which featured a young male prostitute standing in the shadow of the building and pointing at his crotch. During the same period, he took publicity photos for the Portland Civic Theater, documenting their plays and taking portraits of the actors and actresses.

In 1940, White was hired to teach photography at the La Grande Art Center in eastern Oregon. He quickly became immersed in his work, taught classes three days a week, lectured on art to local students, reviewed exhibitions for the local newspaper, and delivered a weekly radio broadcast about activities at the Art Center. In his spare time, he traveled throughout the region taking photographs of the landscape, farms, and small town buildings. He also wrote his first article on photography, "When is Photography Creative?," published two years later in American Photography magazine.

White resigned from the Art Center in late 1941 and returned to Portland, intending to start a commercial photography business. That year, the Museum of Modern Art in New York accepted three of his photographs for inclusion in its "Image of Freedom" exhibition. At the exhibition’s close, the museum purchased all three prints, marking the first time his images entered a public collection. The following year the Portland Art Museum gave White his first one-man show, exhibiting four series of photos he took in eastern Oregon. He wrote in his journal that, with that show, "a period came to a close."

In April 1942, White was drafted into the United States Army and hid his homosexuality. Before departing Portland, he left most of his negatives of historic Portland buildings with the Oregon Historical Society. White spent the first two years of World War II in Hawaii and in Australia. Later, he became Chief of the Divisional Intelligence Branch in the southern Philippines. He rarely photographed during this time, choosing to write poetry and extended verse. Three of his longer poems, "Elegies," "Free Verse for the Freedom of Speech," and "Minor Testament," addressed his war experiences and the bonds of men under extreme conditions. Later, he used text from "Minor Testament" in his photographic sequence Amputations. During the war, White became interested in Catholicism, converting on Easter of 1943.

After the war, White traveled to New York City and enrolled in Columbia University. While in New York, he met and became close friends with Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, who worked in the newly formed photography department at the Museum of Modern Art. Through them, White was offered a job as a museum photographer. He spent many hours talking with Nancy Newhall, who he said educated him and strongly influenced his thinking and direction in photography.

Career and Rise to Fame

In February 1946, White had the first of several meetings with photographer Alfred Stieglitz in New York. White had read Stieglitz's various writings on photography and understood some of his theories. Through their conversations, White came to adopt Stieglitz's theory of equivalence, where the image represents something other than the subject matter, and his use of sequencing pictorial imagery. White wrote in his journal that he expressed his doubt that he was ready to become a serious photographer at one of their meetings. Stieglitz asked him, “Have you ever been in love?" White answered, “Yes.” Stieglitz replied, "Then you can photograph."

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_White), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.